Hello all! For a couple of months, I have been developing a fan comic using the characters of Evangelion, but in circumstances of my own making. It has been called a 'fanverse', or alternate universe comic. For this reason, I'm sure am losing alot of potential readers, and that's the price I pay to be sure, but in this case, I have traded mass-appeal for quality of writing. I would rather have a smaller audience with the freedom to use my imagination. Hopefully, this will still be appealing to some here on EvaGeeks.

It's a lot to explain, but I will begin with the concept behind the doujinshi. This is designed to imagine what Evangelion would look like if it were to take place in our modern present-day world. A world without mech robots, Tokyo-3, or the melting of the ice caps. A world of wars on terror, CNN, and global communities. The characters are still pilots, but of early 21st century aircraft designed to fight an undisclosed enemy in a battlefield the characters are largely kept in the dark about. As with true Evangelion, there are several secrets kept from the pilots until sometimes the last moment.

Many elements and characters of Evangelion have found corollaries in my comic, while others have not. Whenever it would not seem out of place, I have retained original Eva characters. (Still haven't found the right place for Kaji yet)

The main character and focus is on Asuka followed closely by Shinji. Rei and Kaworu are also present as pilots. Each "Eva" is crewed by 2. A pilot and backseat weapons officer.

Other characters making their way into the comic include

RitsukoMisatoGendoHikariToujiMaya

The doujin is designed to be comprised of 2 'books'. The first focuses almost completely on character development, with flying and politics taking a back seat. The second 'book' is designed to focus on the actual deployment, battle and resolution.

So far, the 32-page Chapter 2 is completed. Chapter 1 was in post-production when I had a major change of format away from pencil-shading to computer shading. Therefore, Chapter 1 has been left incomplete for now, awaiting a re-draw. I have begun line art on Chapter 3 this week. If anyone's interested, I can post a link to the zip file of Chapter 2.

Last edited by GrummanCat on Fri Sep 22, 2017 8:35 pm, edited 20 times in total.

Probably the fastest and best way to explain the story of the comic is this description of SEELE according to my doujinshi that was posted on my DeviantArt page.

Again, I apologize if this is a big pill for people to swallow around here. Believe it or not, great steps are being taken to ensure that characters act and react in ways that are consistent with their characters according to the anime. At the same time, the characters in this story are depicted as being 20 years old, not 14, and some differences are not only inevitable, but appropriate I think. Anyway, on with the 'fanverse' backstory.

************************************************************************************************************Seele is a secret organization which has for hundreds of years had a policy of supporting military and polictical underdogs in conflicts around the world. With assests (mostly small or modest) spread out in every corner of the globe for all those years, it is believed that Seele's net worth rivals most nation's gross domestic products. Some say Seele's origins are French as the first suspected evidence of Seele occurred in the late 18th century, when they apparently provided the early American colonies with the funds to buy French artillery and training.

Seele's influence is more easily traced in the latter part of the 20th century. It was Seele who provided the North Vietnamese with the funds to buy Soviet equipment as well as Soviet training to oust the United States from Southeast Asia. Then Seele turned right around and provided funding to the Mujahedin in the early 1980s to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. This is consistant with Seele's apparent policy of balancing power in conflicts around the world. With the end of the cold war, and with the United States apparently the only remaining superpower, Seele began focusing their efforts on anti-American pursuits. Throughout the 1990s, Seele provided more and more funding to Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaida group, targeting what Seele felt was a bloated and out-of-control imperial war machine, and an over-bearing international police organization. Seele had great faith in the efforts of September 11th, 2001, but met the events with great disappointment, seeing both the fall of the Taliban and the explosion, not repression, of the American 'empire'. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Seele had disassociated itself with Al Qaida.

As the Al Qaida project unraveled, Seele turned it's attention to grander plans, more appropriate they felt, to tackle the worlds only remaining superpower...

Around 2005, Seele began funding efforts to procure a nuclear weapons program in North Korea, leading quickly to North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006. As half-hearted diplomacy and North Korean reluctance to actually use nuclear weapons slowed Seele's efforts again, the society began taking bolder steps to ensure that this effort would not fail as the Al Qaida project had. Beginning in 2009, unbeknowst to most intellegance analysts, Kim Jong Il was secretly replaced in a postion of direct power by an ultra-conservative protege, Dae-Hyun Tam. Tam immediately began the manufacture of deliverable nuclear ordinance as well as the secret purchase of ex-soviet equipment including aircraft, artilery and vehicles with which to both defend North Korea from Southern invasion and to pre-emptively attack Japan and the United States, the 2 most likely countries to come to South Korea's defense.

I haven't cleared up the details yet on exactly how Gendo Ikari came to leave Seele in my story (or if I had, I would have to keep SOME things secret for now), but at some point, well before this story begins, Gendo Ikari (who was once a member of Seele) left presumably following the death of his wife. This of course would have been after Shinji was born. Gendo has been able to remain alive by deceiving Seele into thinking he is dead. Now, he lives in notorious reclusion, prompting some in NERV to give him the unofficial code-name of "Howard Hughes".

The departure of Gendo Ikari from Seele definitely was not amicable, for he immediately made it his mission to counter Seele's plans -of which he had intimate knowlege. Gendo is one of the very few humans on the planet, other than current Seele members, who is aware of Seele's intentions on the Korean peninsula. In the days after September 11th, Gendo approached a favorable American government with certain limited knowlege of Seele and its plans. This allowed him to secure the necessary funding for the Evangelion Project. A project aimed broadly at defeating Seele and specifically at preventing 3rd Impact- Seele's cataclysmic ultimate plan for dealing with the 'American Empire'.

Soon after the United States became aware of Seele and its intentions, it entered an international -and highly secret- partnership with Japan and South Korea to provide technical utilization and training to defeat Seele. The United States would provide the machinery (particularly aircraft). Japan would provide the pilots for testing the prototypes, as well as technical consultation and computer/software advances, allowing the aircraft to be nearly invulnerable to anti-aircraft attack. South Korea would secretly provide a platform for the physical invasion of North Korea. It was a conflict everyone felt was inevitable, and a race against time to prevent the unthinkable- the total unraveling of the international community and the termination of perhaps millions of lives.

Last edited by GrummanCat on Thu Apr 08, 2010 1:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

More than promoting a fan comic, I am here for input and constructive criticism.

When taking such bold steps with well-established characters, I consider it critical to handle the characters as believably as possible.

I want to discuss things like character traits with as many fans as possible to avoid the author's influence infecting these characters which are not my own.

It's easy for a fan writer to pollute established characters with his own personality and tastes, so I welcome input from Eva fans like yourselves.

So far in places like deviantart and the Asuka/Rei board.com, I have enjoyed building this doujinshi with my fellow fans in ways that satisfy most fans' concerns. I hope such a constructive atmosphere could be found here.

Of course, the hardest part of a doujinshi is the art, especially when dealing with well-established characters. That is another way I have benefited from fan input and I hope to continue that here. This is my first doujinshi and I have had to put a lot of work in to getting the characters to look right. Inevitably, there are flaws here and there, and again, I welcome input from fans and fellow artists.

Regarding the aircraft the characters are flying, you'll recognize the F-14 airframe, which was retired in 2006 in the comic pages I am sharing with you. I chose the F-14 for a couple of reasons. One, it's my favorite, so sue me. Second, to perform their specialized task, the aircraft in this doujin must be carrier-based, capable of Mach 2.5 or better (ruling out the Hornet), and capable of carrying more useful load than the Hornet as well. Like true Evangelions, these aircraft are controlled by a combination of dual sidesticks and thought inputs by the pilots (allowing them to still use their hairplugs from the anime).

There is of course alot more explaining to do, but here are some random pages from chapter 2 which reflect some lessons learned and some to-be-learned.

As I said, this is not for every Eva fan, but so far, the feedback I have received is about 80-90% positive and most of the criticism has been constructive, helping me to improve it. I hope some fans here enjoy following this doujinshi and seeing it improve.

Thanks! The work I'm doing now is extremely character-centered, in many ways the hardest part of making any fan work believable. I have seen so many poorly written fanfics and hentai doujins wherein the author completely subverts the characters' original personalities with their own personalities (or fantasies in the case of those H-doujins). It is actually one of the first things I worried about when I decided to go doujin. Right behind getting the art to look right.

On top of that, the characters have to act the way they would probably act around age 20. Lots to consider, and I'll be sharing my progress as well as bouncing ideas off you guys as time/work goes on.

This looks really cool, and I'm looking forward to more. I like your art.

And just a side note: if you feel the need to post again within a few hours (a day even) since your last post, just edit the new post into the prior, unless, of course, the prior post has been replied to. Simply, don't double post unless a significant gap has passed, like a day or so. Otherwise, just edit the new stuff into your last post. If you're worried that the new stuff won't be seen, copy the content of the prior post and delete the post itself, then paste the content into a new post, along with what you want to add, in order to update the thread.

"Chaos is merely a human construct. The world only knows its own natural law of harmony and order.""So you are saying it's the human heart that throws the world into confusion."

Thanks for the compliment and courteous reminder. As you know, I'm new to the site and did read the rules, but something always gets forgotten now and then.

EDIT- Here is the completed Chapter 2 of the doujinshi.

Chapter 1 was nearly completed when I switched styles from pencil shading to computer color shading. Therefore, I haven't really finished chapter 1 yet. This is more like asking you guys to be my test audience.

As this is not the beginning of my story, I have included a wordpad file with notes explaining some of the things that were covered prior to chapter 2 just so you guys aren't totally lost.

I'm aware that some of the art still leaves room for improvement, and I think I still have some work to do, particularly on Ritsuko. These are things that will improve as the doujin goes on and in fact have already improved a little as I make my way into Chapter 3. Again, if you guys have pointers on the art, I'd like to hear.

Regarding the way I did airplanes in the comic, I am considering redoing them at the end of the doujin to be all my own art, but I'm not sure since I kinda like the way I stylized the pictures. Anyway, enough explanation. Here is Chapter 2 in zip file. Hope you find it worth reading.

GrummanCat wrote:I'm aware that some of the art still leaves room for improvement, and I think I still have some work to do, particularly on Ritsuko.

God, don't remind me. I think she and Fuyu were the hardest ones for me so far.As for your art, it's not as easy to give advice, as you have quite your own style going on there. I guess what could use some work is the hair, especially Asuka's and Kensuke's bangs tend to be rather inconsistent (on page 9, Kensuke's "bumps" don't even line up with how the hair falls down). And maybe more actual strands and less random scribbly lines, they just don't give it a very clean look (this already got better on the last few pages from the shower scene on, so maybe you know this already).Otherwise, you could always try to add more detail and background here and there, but of course that racks up the necessary time and work, so you'd have to judge yourself whether or not it'd be worth it.

As for characterization, it's a bit borderline with Shinji. Competitiveness isn't above him, but it seems a bit much here IMO. Also Rei being upset about him risking her "Eva" seems odd, but the different background could easily explain differences in personality in her case.

Fair critique, thanks! I just looked at page 9 and holy cow! You're right about Kensuke's hair. I'm gonna tag that for later replacement in the finished doujin.

Regarding Shinji's character, I hear ya. After the dogfight, he shows some signs of being the usual Shinji (particularly when Ritsuko's lecturing him or Rei is slapping him), but yeah, I felt a little odd having Misato describe him as "Hyper competitive". HOW-EV-ER; when I began writing the doujin originally, I had a series of criteria that had to be met for the whole thing to work with Asuka (still the primary character).

This is that whoever locked horns with Asuka was going to have to be agressive himself. Originally, I had written the part for a cross-over character from another series. Don't really want to say who the crossover character was b/c in retrospect, it's pretty out of place (NOT in the same genre as Evangelion). But this character WAS capable of being agressive and not giving a damn about Asuka or her feelings. He was kind of a young punk. This was necessary to establish the conflict and eventual fascination Asuka has with the male lead.

Before drawing began, I decided to let the crossover character go, and move Shinji into the role. (Shinji/Asuka pairings are easier for Eva fans to take anyway) This required 2 things; I had to water down the agressiveness of the male lead, and I had to "man-up" Shinji's character, to kind of meet halfway. I decided to make the characters 20 years old because 14 year-olds driving these planes was just too much to believe. A side effect, as you observed is that I have a little leeway with the characters personalities. I mean Shinji BETTER not be a little wuss all his life!

As a side note, in Eva canon, Shinji DID display some outright agressiveness when battling the 4th Angel, Shamshel, so as you say, it's not above him.

Regarding Rei getting upset, I felt she over reacted when he complained about his Father in the anime (the other time she slapped him), but honestly, that's one of those scenes that happened because of something else. When imagining the scene, I wound up with this quip from Kensuke (For getting beat up by women this much, shouldn't you be sleeping with at least one of them?) and to use it, I needed Rei to slap Shinji. Given the aforementioned leeway, I went with it. It was a good way I think to finish the chapter with Kensuke saying that.

Yeah, backgrounds were a bit sparse in this chapter. I felt they weren't needed as much with so many cockpit shots, but even then, there are times when you don't even see their seats. Something I'll tackle better with the next chapter. I have already begun addressing it with some of my work for later scenes. For example, in this shot of Asuka in Shinji's house.

http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/ac173/grummancat/02.jpg

BTW- if you are noticing the background it does NOT mean you are gay.

This is by no means a hentai doujin, but there are some scenes worthy of an R-rated movie in here. As well as the good old fan service. Not as hardcore as what you saw in Re-Take.

Um...Lol??? EDIT: I have a few random douji pages coming along, too. Not a storyline, mind you. too lazy for that... Just some random actions from my (much revised) fanfic, though you gotta teach me how to make the page look remotely like a doujin in terms of formatting :)

Yeah, in Chapter 4, Shinji has to go out of town to pick up his Eva and Asuks's making it hard for him to go. No pun intended....

tehprognoob wrote:Um...Lol??? EDIT: I have a few random douji pages coming along, too. Not a storyline, mind you. too lazy for that... Just some random actions from my (much revised) fanfic, though you gotta teach me how to make the page look remotely like a doujin in terms of formatting :)

With chapter 2 now in the rear-view mirror and some lessons learned, I am now knee deep in chapter 3. There are about 6 scenes in it and I am wrapping up scene 2 now. As JimmyWolk suggested, I am trying to bring up my backgrounds in this chapter and I have had a few good results I think. Also, there is a nice Maya- Ritsuko scene in here which I enjoyed. I redid Maya's hair to be a little more feminine while still being pretty short.

Anyway, I am at the point now where I feel this thing really has its own momentum. For now, I will share some images including a whole page from Chapter 3, the first 2 scenes. So far, ch.3 is 15 pages long and I'm at best %25 through it. 2 really important scenes coming up. For now, I hope you guys enjoy these random images.

(this method of uploading images, while easier for you guys to see, makes them all look like one single image. Sorry)

Thanks guys! It's alot to ask established fans to go along with an 'alternate universe' fan comic, so I'm glad you like it so far. I am in the middle of drawing chapter 3 right now and I just finished scene 3 last night. What I like most about this chapter is that while it is a pretty long chapter, it is broken up into smaller scenes, making it less overwhelming than chapter 2 which was basically one big dogfight scene.

Here is the last page of scene 3, which comes directly after the page I just posted above. Thanks again for the kind words.

This is some very impressive work that you've done here. It's very ambitious too, how do you keep up?

Quick word of advice though: stick to one language unless it's Asuka using some colorful bits of German. It doesn't seem right to use her catch phrase in romanized Japanese, even if it is her catch phrase.